Impressions
by motchi
Summary: She's tired of deadbeats, he's a guy who should be dead. Zack/Tifa post-original game AU, ignores Compilation
1. The dead do not always die (p1)

**AN: **At one point—or maybe several—I swore I'd never bring this back. For one, I lost it in a hard drive accident. Two, the drama surrounding it gave me a decidedly ambivalent attitude toward it.

But time and distance have a way of dulling things. This will not be the original story, however, but a cleaned up version. I'm even caving and changing his name from Forrester to Fair. Expect sporadic updates while I pick through it with a fine toothed comb amidst other updates.

And send out a thought of thanks to AngelaFox for sending me her copy. She's the real MVP.

* * *

**The dead do not always die.**

The public park in Gongaga wasn't one she was used to, but it didn't bother her.

Tifa had always assumed parks purposely strove for common elements to make people feel at home in whichever city they visited. The trees sometimes differed from region to region, but they still offered shade. The outdoor chatter might contain different accents, but they still consisted of _Did you hear? He said that? Oh, my!_ Same runny noses, same high-risk drinking fountains, same semi-reckless pursuit of the outdoors on playground equipment. Parks were comforting clusters of leisure and germs.

It was a neat trick, really, and she was grateful for any comfort she could get. Because as Tifa approached her reason for being in _this_ particular park, she knew the next thing she did would be very uncomfortable.

Tifa stopped. She cleared her throat and asked, "Excuse me, but is this spot taken?"

At her polite inquiry, the older woman sitting on the park bench stopped her knitting. The sun glinted softly off loose brown curls, and the smile on the woman's warmly appealing face was a kind one. But Tifa's heart still shrank a little to see it.

_He had his mother's smile_. She would've recognized it anywhere; for the past three months, it had been a frequent, uninvited guest in her dreams.

"Nope! Have a seat!" The woman patted the slats of green paint with a slim hand. As she resumed her knitting, the woman casually said, "I come here to meet with my son, but he hasn't arrived yet."

_And he won't be arriving any time soon, I'm afraid, _Tifa thought. She perched herself on the edge of the bench, too nervous to commit to the whole seat. She was acutely aware of how tense she was in contrast to the woman's relaxed concentration. Had sweat broken out under her armpits? She squeezed her arms closer to her ribs and added "self-conscious" to her list of anxieties.

"It's so nice out today, don't you think?" the woman continued, not looking up from her knitting. "The weather's been unseasonably warm these past few days. Might as well enjoy it while you can."

Tifa nodded, but the pleasantness of the weather had been lost on her. The last couple of days she'd been holed up at her hotel, trying to pluck up the courage to talk to this woman and her husband.

But today was her last chance. Tifa took a deep, resolve-strengthening breath then blurted, "I'm sorry, ma'am!"

The woman stopped in the middle of a purl and blinked at Tifa. "Sorry? Why ever would you be sorry?"

Tifa sucked in a deep breath through her nose then forced herself to meet the woman's eyes. "Ma'am, this is really awkward for me," she began, just like she had rehearsed in the hotel mirror that morning. "I mean, I've never done anything like this before. But I want to talk to you about your son. I have something I need to tell you about him."

"My son?" the woman repeated. "What about him?" She frowned suddenly. "He hasn't gotten you pregnant, has he?"

A bark of laughter escaped Tifa. "No!"

"Then what is it?" the woman wanted to know. The knitting needles had stopped. "Is he in some sort of trouble? Is that why he's late?"

Tifa shook her head. "My name is Tifa Lockhart, ma'am—maybe you've heard of me? I knew your son once, years ago. I'm here now because I thought… I thought you should know what happened to him. You see, your son is—"

"Sorry I'm late, Mom. I got a little...held up."

"Ah, there you are!" The older woman cast aside her knitting and stood to embrace the young, dark-haired man who had just loped over. She released him and turned to where Tifa still sat, immobilized, on the bench. "You remember— I'm sorry, did you say your name was Tifa?"

Tifa nodded and rose to her feet, speechless.

_Tall, _was her first thought—so tall he had to stoop to drop a kiss on his mother's cheek. Had he always been this tall, she wondered. She felt small and unsure standing so close to him, enduring the scrutiny of his too-luminous eyes.

_Solid, _was her second thought. He looked like a man—like how men were supposed to look, like how she remembered her father—nothing like the boy-man who had stopped loving her a year and a half ago. His black hair was short, but she knew, if allowed to grow a few more inches, it would be as spiky and unruly as she remembered.

Seeing him in the flesh brought back memories of flames and death. His eyes collided with hers, and something passed between them, questions mostly, but also pain and a little resentment.

He held out a hand—polite, but wary.

"Hello...Tifa."

As Tifa shook it, the feel of his warm, very-much-alive skin broke through any hesitation to give voice to what had brought her to Gongaga—what she had, up until a second ago, still assumed to be true.

"Hello, Zack," was her cool reply. "I thought you were dead."

* * *

**AN:** Can you believe? I had butterflies in my stomach reposting this. Leave me your thoughts, yo!


	2. The dead do not always die (p2)

**AN: **And…we're back! Much like with **First Dates**, it was great seeing some names I remembered from the first time around, as well as some new ones. I guess that's the perks of reposts.

Special thanks go to my super helpful help desk, **Hayacall**; my bfff, **NineShadows**; and my new beta, Mr. Motchi.

* * *

**The dead do not always die. (part 2)**

"Well!" Zack's mother said, eyes darting between the two of them. "I guess you two know each other after all." She bent down and began stuffing her knitwork into a bag.

Zack's eyes left Tifa's long enough to fix his mother with a puzzled look. "Mom, what are you doing? Are you leaving? I just got here."

"Yes, but you were late." His mother straightened and pulled the bag's strap onto her shoulder. "And now I've got to get home and start on the laundry. Doesn't wash itself, you know." She winked at Tifa.

Tifa smiled politely, wishing she, too, had a pile of laundry to wash, or a flight to catch—any excuse would do, really, now that the point of the entire visit was rendered moot. She felt foolish and angry and embarrassed for having wasted so much time and sleep on what now felt like an elaborately cruel joke.

"It's just you and Dad," Zack protested. "How much laundry could there be?"

His mother flapped her hands in exasperation. "Oh, plenty—you know how that man is." Smiling, she pulled a startled Tifa into a quick hug. "It was so lovely meeting you. My name's Karol Fair, by the way. So delighted…"

"Mom—"

Karol Fair turned to her son. "Don't forget to stop by for dinner tonight—it's your favorite—and bring Tifa with if you haven't scared her away before then. Okay? Okay. I'm going now."

"Mother," came Zack's growl, but she was already halfway down the walkway, moving in that brisk, efficient manner of all mothers who have somewhere else to be.

The silence that followed was the kind usually filled by bad jokes about televised sports. Without the convenient buffer of Karol Fair's energy, the two of them stood there, idling, waiting for one of them to make a crack about last night's game, or the weather, or to address the fact that one of them wasn't dead.

When neither of them did, Tifa cleared her throat. "So your mother..." she began, "she's very friendly, isn't she?"

"Hmm! I wouldn't exactly say _that_, but she seemed to like _you_." Zack's brows knit and he said, almost to himself, "Very strange for her to warm up to someone that quickly. But anyway, I'm guessing you'd like an explanation."

He lowered himself onto the spot where his mother had been minutes before and stretched out his long legs. "Have a seat," he invited, patting the section where Tifa was sitting before he arrived. "I won't bite—at least not until the second date."

Tifa rolled her eyes but sat, keeping a sizable distance between the two of them. She didn't want to flirt; she wanted answers. "Given the fact that I came all this way to tell your parents that their son is dead, only to find out that he isn't, I think I deserve to know how."

A shadow passed over him, tightening his mouth and flattening the blue in his eyes. "_Dying_ to know, are you?"

Tifa shot him a look. "That's not funny."

"Sure it is." Zack hooked a wrist over the back of the bench. "Humor can be found in almost anything. People just fail to look for it."

He turned his head to stare off in the direction of a group of children on the swing sets. Time had not taken away his good looks, his charisma—_or_ _his life, apparently_—but it had added an edge. His mouth, though still animated, was a little slower to smile than the version she remembered from Nibelheim. His eyes reminded Tifa of a wild animal's—watchful and wary, never staying in one place for long.

He was dressed in the casual style of other men his age, rather than the distinguished first class uniform, but even in a gray t-shirt and faded jeans Zack still drew admiring glances from any hapless female who happened to be in his orbit.

_A girl in every port,_ Aerith had once said about his charm. Tifa could believe it.

"They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die," Zack remarked suddenly. He swung his head toward her. "You've heard that saying, right?"

Tifa blinked. "Yeah, of course."

He nodded absently. "Well, not me. Not mine. I waited for it though. As I lay there dying, I thought, 'Well at least I get to see my highlight reel,' but it never came." A sharp, bitter laugh sounded through his nose. "Just an inventory of all the places I hurt in."

Her resistance to him softened a little at the obvious pain in his voice. "Zack, you don't—" Tifa began.

He stopped her with a hand. "No, please, let me finish." He waited for her affirmative before continuing, "Not five minutes after Cloud mosied off, a shop owner and his daughter happened to pass by on their way to Midgar. I was lucky he had a new stock of potions with him, because Tseng told me it took twenty just to get me breathing again."

"Tseng?"

Zack nodded. "The Turks. They might've been too late to keep me from getting my ass handed to me, but they weren't too late to keep me from dying. I spent all of Meteorfall in a coma in some"—he made quotation marks with his fingers—"'super secret base' under an island somewhere, and when I came to it was in a pretty barebones facility. It was just me, a med student, a nurse, and a television for about a month—they later invited me to their wedding," he added, chuckling. "I didn't go. But I saw on TV what you guys did—and, hey, I'm sitting next to a bona fide hero."

Tifa looked down at her nails. "I'm no hero," she said. "It took all of us to bring that thing down in the end. And if it hadn't been for Aerith...and what she did..."

Zack let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Wish it had turned out differently...for all of us."

At his words, Tifa was reminded that this man and Aerith could have married, could have had kids, could have had a future together. An ache of regret and loss for her friend clutched at her heart.

"I think she really missed you, you know," Tifa said gently. "And if things _had_ turned out differently, maybe it would be you two sitting here together now."

Zack shrugged and scratched at the cross-shaped scar on his jaw. "Maybe, maybe not. I liked her enough to write home about her, but I was far from ready to settle down then. Might've stayed together, might've run our course in a couple of years. Who knows?"

He shifted on the bench and brought an ankle up to settle on a knee. "Still, she was a great girl," he added as an afterthought, absently fingering the cuff of his jeans. "My mom probably would've liked her. She told me once that a 'group of strange people' came to visit her and Dad, back before I'd made it home, and I've always wondered if Aerith was in that group."

His tone was conversational, but there was a shrewd perceptiveness about him when he glanced over at her. It hadn't been one of Tifa's finer moments, that meeting with his parents, and the fact that he knew about it gave her the impetus to make a confession. "She was, and so was I. We all were. I wanted to say something to your parents then, about what I knew had happened in Nibelheim, but I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I thought you'd died _then_ and _there_, and the last thing I remembered saying to you was how I hated and blamed you for everything."

Zack made a dismissive gesture. "Eh, I knew what you meant and why you said it."

"But it wasn't right. In my mind, this trip was the next best thing to apologizing to you in person, by saying what I couldn't say to your parents that first time. But, here you are." Tifa made a point to meet his eyes. "So, for what it's worth, I'm sorry for what I said back then."

He dipped his head to the side in acknowledgment, then admitted, "You know, until I saw you on TV I also thought you'd died back there, hating me. Guess it's a good thing for us that the dead don't always die."

Though his words were irreverent, they were liberating in a sense. She laughed then with something like relief, relief that he wasn't dead, relief that he wasn't angry, and relief that it was now something she could put behind her and move on from. _And she definitely would._

When he smiled at her she returned it fully, and something undefinable passed between them. Tifa blinked at the strange fluttering in her stomach. She hadn't eaten lunch yet, had she? She looked at her watch and wondered if she'd be able to find a table at a restaurant somewhere before she had to meet up with Cid.

"Well, Zack," she said, gathering her purse to her, "I'm glad—"

"See that vendor over there?"

"Who? Vendor, where?"

Zack was staring out into the park. "Over there." He pointed with the hand that was still draped over the back of the bench. "See him?"

She squinted in the direction he'd motioned toward and made out a gray-haired man standing at an enclosed stainless steel cart under a brightly striped umbrella. "Yes."

"Do you know why there's a long line of people at it?"

"Because it's lunchtime and he's the only vendor in the park?"

Zack smiled. "Close. It's because he serves the best hot dogs. Where are you living now?"

"W-Where? I—?" Tifa was now thoroughly confused. "What are we talking about?"

"Just answer. Where do you live?"

"Junon. Why?"

"Junon, huh?" He paused, a contemplative expression on his face. "I reckon you couldn't get a better hot dog there, or anywhere else on this planet. So what do you say to me buying you lunch?"

"Oh, um. I—" _Was planning on leaving_. "You don't have to, Zack."

"I know I don't _have to_," he said. "But you didn't _have to _come all this way to talk to my parents, either. It's the least I can do. Ketchup and mustard, no onions—am I right?"

Tifa's mouth closed on a protest. "How did you know?"

Zack gave her a wolfish grin. "I'm no stranger to what women like. Be right back."

Before she could stop him, he rose from his spot and set off, hands in pockets. His easy, loping gait was something she had remembered about him from Nibelheim, walking through the streets, catching every eye. It was no wonder that Cloud and Aerith had looked up to him. How could anyone resist?

As an unwitting answer to her thoughts, she watched a young woman break from the front of the line to join him at the back. From what Tifa could tell, the woman was very pretty, and very proud of her ability to laugh and toss her dark hair flirtatiously. Her bright shorts and top were a skin-baring contrast to Tifa's black pants and gray blouse. In short, she looked exactly like the kind of girl a man like Zack would gravitate toward.

When she had witnessed enough hair tossing and deceptively casual touches to make her feel like a voyeur, Tifa forced her thoughts to how she was going to break the news to Cloud. When she'd seen him last week and informed him of her intention to come to Gongaga, he'd steadfastly refused to accompany her, even going so far as to try and dissuade her from it.

_The past is the past, Tifa,_ he had said. _And what's done can't be undone. Why try?_

"One lemonade—I hope you like lemonade, by the way—and two hot dogs with ketchup, mustard and no onions."

Zack's light baritone brought her blinking out of her reverie. She accepted the two foil-wrapped bundles and lemonade cup with a distracted "Thanks."

He sat down and they busied themselves with unwrapping their lunches. As she took her first bite, she cast a curious glance at him out of the corner of her eye, and did a double-take. "Three?"

He had half of one gone already. "Four," he said, around a mouthful of food. "Ate one…the way here. I tol' you…the best." He swallowed and took another large bite.

"So how did you end up here?"

"Hel'copper."

Tifa frowned. "No, I meant—"

Zack swallowed his mouthful. "I know. I was teasing." He took a sip of lemonade before continuing, "After I came out of the coma and was able to sort through the second chance I'd been given, I told Reeve I wanted out. I was done with the hero shit. I guess he figured Shin-Ra owed me and he cut me loose. I came here and have been living a quiet life ever since."

He balled up a wrapper and tossed it in a careless arc toward the trash bin on the other side of the walkway. Tifa watched it sail in enviously. Growing up, he was probably the kid who got picked first for every game, the star of every team. It was no wonder he'd made First Class SOLDIER.

"Speaking of the quiet life…" He started unwrapping another hot dog. "Junon… What do you do there?"

Tifa held up a hand while she finished chewing. "I'm in the second year of my Library Sciences degree at the university there, but I'm hoping that if I go through the summer, I can finish in a year and a half— Are you all right?"

Zack had already inhaled his second hot dog and was currently choking and sputtering on his third. "You're... going to be... a librarian?" he asked, coughing. "Seriously?"

Tifa pruned her lips together. A sharp retort lay on her tongue, but she was rudely prevented from delivering it by robust laughter.

"Oh, never mind what I just said," Zack got out. His eyes were crinkled in amusement. "I remember getting that face from Mrs. Stuart, the school librarian. You are perfect!"

"Hmpf," was Tifa's response.

"Hey, now," he said, chuckling. He tossed the rest of his wrappers into the bin then leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. "There's nothing wrong with being"—his lips twitched upwards—"a librarian. Can't be any worse than what I'm in school for."

It was Tifa's turn to be shocked. "You're in school?"

He slanted her a glance, grinning. "Hard to believe, isn't it? But an ex-SOLDIER's gotta do something."

"So what are you doing?" She popped the last bite of her first hot dog into her mouth and fisted up the wrapper.

He automatically held a hand out for it. After a few seconds of confusion, she dumped it onto his palm and he arched it into the trash. "I've got another two years before I can take the exam to be an actuary." He laced his fingers again and looked off into the distance.

"I'm sorry, a what?"

Zack pivoted toward her with a raised an eyebrow. "Don't know what one is, eh? Well, let's just say the General had it all wrong. Actuaries are the ones with ultimate power."

She took a sip of lemonade and unwrapped her second hot dog. "Okay, now I have to ask, what power is that?"

"Statistics," he said grimly, but with a twinkle in his eye. "Calculations. Forecasting. Risk evaluation. I will bring the insurance industry to its knees." He raised a clenched fist dramatically.

"But, in'urance!" she said, covering her chewing behind a hand.

"To its knees, Tifa." Zack held his pose a few seconds longer then let his hand fall to his knee. "No, seriously though, if all goes well and I actually pass that damnably hard exam, I plan to be self-employed. I've always wanted to be my own boss, you know, and there's a lot longer life expectancy with this career than the one I previously had my heart set on. Plus, they make a hell of a lot more gil too."

Tifa finished the rest of her lunch, trying to picture him in a boardroom giving a presentation, and found that she could easily see it—shirt and tie, corporate, yet still very masculine. He'd be the Office Crush, for sure.

He held out a palm for her wrapper again, and while he lined up his arm for his throw she stole a glance at him from beneath lowered lashes. It seemed there was more to Zack than just looks and brawn, and it was something she could relate to. Perhaps that was why being a librarian was so appealing to her. It was something unexpected, something that belied her appearance, and something that challenged her to use more than her fists.

When he caught her staring, he smiled and the fluttering from earlier started back up in her stomach again. Only this time, she knew it had nothing to do with hunger—or not the hunger she was used to. She had been single for too long, possibly.

_Or I'm just not used to being around a man again._

"I should be going." Tifa stood up with her lemonade in hand and shouldered her purse. "Thanks for lunch, Zack, and you were right about the hot dogs."

Zack rose to his feet as well. "Not going to stick around for the Karol Fair Special?"

Tifa shook her head. "No, I'm afraid I can't. Please tell your mother I appreciated the invite, but I needed to catch my ride home."

"All right, I'll break the news to her, but you owe me." He patted his jeans pockets. "Do you have paper and a pen?"

"Why? What for?"

"I want to give you my number...in case no one believes that I'm still alive."

"Oh. Right." With the hand not holding the lemonade, she rooted around in her purse and found a pen and an old receipt. "Here you go."

He took them, scribbled something down on the back of the receipt and handed both back to her. She shoved them into her purse, without so much as a glance, and turned back to him with her hand held out.

He ignored the proffered hand. "Aren't you going to give me yours?"

"My what?"

"Your info."

"My info? What for?"

He shrugged. "Seems only fair." He pulled out his phone from a front pocket of his jeans and flipped it open. "I'll just program yours in."

Tifa blinked and rattled off her number as if on autopilot. He closed up his phone with a snap then picked up the hand she had offered earlier and belatedly shook it. Her hand felt small in his large warm one, and the tactile contact of her skin against his had her fluttering again.

He released her hand and smiled. "Thanks for coming here, and for thinking of my parents. I appreciate it—I really do—and it was truly good to see you again. Take care, Tifa, and good luck with your librarian aspirations."

"Yes!" Tifa said quickly, sensing that they were wrapping up. "I'm also truly glad to see you're alive and doing so well. Good luck with your exam, Zack."

"It isn't for a couple of years," he reminded her.

"Yes, but who knows when I'll get to say it again? So I'm wishing you luck now."

A curious expression settled on his face. "Then, thank you. If I'm ever in Junon, maybe I'll stop and say hi."

_Like that would ever happen._ "Yeah! I'd love to see you again."

His brows lifted. "You would?"

_Ack! _She hadn't meant to sound _that_ enthusiastic. "Sure, why not?" Tifa said as nonchalantly as she could. "I'd be happy to show you around town. Just call first and give me warning so I can make sure I'm free."

"I might just do that," Zack said. "Listen, I need to go that way." He pointed in the direction he'd first come from. "Where are you headed?"

"Oh, I need to go that way." Tifa pointed in the direction of her hotel, the complete opposite of where he was going, much to her relief.

"So we part ways here."

"Yes." _In more ways than one._

They stood in the middle of the walkway, neither one moving, eyes darting at the ground, at the trees, and occasionally at each other. Tifa hated awkward goodbyes, and this one easily ranked up there as one of the worst. If she were brave, she'd treat him like one of her friends and leave him with at least a hug.

"Goodbye, Zack." She bit at her bottom lip for a few indecisive seconds. Then she spun on her heel and strode quickly away.

"So long, Tifa!" she heard him call. By the time she'd worked up enough nerve to turn around and wave, he was nowhere in sight.

Her steps slowed as she reached into her purse for the scrap of paper. She stared at the messy scrawl he'd left on it—just numbers and a name, hardly anything at all. But they represented another person in her life, another fork in the path she was so bent on keeping unforked.

With a sigh, Tifa crumpled up the paper and dropped it into the nearest trash bin. Then she put her chin up and headed resolutely in the direction of a future that belong solely to her.

* * *

**AN: **For those of you who remember this story, you may have noticed that I changed quite a bit. (Or, maybe it was so subtle you didn't notice at all. Hee hee.)

For all of you: What did you think? Let me know, please!


	3. White horses aren't requisite

**AN: **Part of the benefit of rewriting a completed story is having the luxury of hindsight. I've come to think of this one as my Frankenchapter: a combination of old, new and parts from other chapters that has hopefully made this one—and the story overall—a better one.

* * *

**White horses aren't requisite.**

Midgar was no more. A second calamity from the skies had come and gone, but not without claiming a once-great metropolis among its casualties. It was a fact that was evident in every piece of rubble, in every broken street, in every hollowed building.

Long the site of Shin-Ra's military strength, Junon had been watching the skies during the events leading up to Meteorfall and awaiting its orders from Midgar, and when they came they were not from who Junon expected. As the last remaining Shin-Ra executive, Reeve Tuesti had taken control of the chaos left in the wake of the company's massive disestablishment and dispatched most of the troops stationed at Junon's base to aid in Midgar's evacuation, draining the former port town of most of its occupants.

The majority of Midgar fled to Kalm, but those who had money and could afford to travel chose to relocate to the much larger and less "backwoods" Junon. So when the first flood of evacuees—or "extended vacationers"—arrived, it woke the city up. The townspeople rubbed their eyes to find their inns suddenly filled, their shops frequented again and their restaurants busy once more. Midgar was no more, but Junon was alive and gil was flowing in its veins.

However, the more astute of Junon understood that very little was being done to prepare the city for a more permanent future. There was a state of underlying uncertainty over what its larger purpose would be, and despite the current wave of prosperity, Junon was secretly holding its breath for its true fate.

It finally came when Reeve arrived a month later with the Turks. He also brought with him a much larger and more purposeful flood of evacuees, chiefly made up of former Shin-Ra employees and faculty of the destroyed Midgar University.

With most of the military aiding in the search and rescue efforts in Midgar, the near-empty base was overrun almost entirely by the new wave of people. The infirmary was usurped by the medical school to handle the more serious, long-term cases sent from the hospital in Kalm. The science departments, along with Shin-Ra's own scientists, were immediately put to the task of finding energy source alternatives. The school of architecture began drafting up multi-housing plans, and when the military finally returned, they were handed over to the civil engineers and the public works of Junon.

The Turks...did whatever Turks did.

The whole city fell under Reeve's well-organized spell. Even the embittered ex-fishermen of lower Junon found themselves drawn into this brave, new future. Ever resourceful and effective, Reeve convinced them to trade in their old dinghies for much larger passenger ferries and cargo ships. The port began to working for the people again, not the military, and the original occupants of the town fittingly became the instruments that returned it back to its harbor roots.

When the dust finally settled, Junon had become a model for the rest of the world. Using tidal power and wind farms, the city had decreased its dependence on mako energy to the point of closing down the undersea reactor, making way for the oceans to be restocked. Enrollment at the university had almost reached its pre-catastrophe numbers. The military had decreased in size, and most of its corps were happily employed in civilian jobs. There was a hospital, a growing downtown business district, schools, a busy airport, and it also boasted two Meteorfall heroes as part of its population—a newly elected Governor Reeve Tuesti and Junon University student, Tifa Lockhart.

So if Junon was a little smug these days, who could blame it?

* * *

Tifa was close to tears by the time she wheeled her bicycle through the front door of her house. It had been a stressful weekend that had spilled into a stressful Monday, and all she wanted was to curl up on the couch with a hot cup of tea and a warm male body. The couch and tea were doable, but the warm male body—unless she counted Higgins—was not.

But this was nothing new. Tifa knew what kind of life she was committing herself to every time she discouraged someone's interest in her. And after two years of coming home to an empty, silent house, she had grown used to having days where the empty, silent feeling overwhelmed her otherwise well-ordered existence.

She closed and bolted her front door shut for the night, then she flipped on the light switch for the end table lamps. Her purse and school bag got dumped unceremoniously onto the sofa as she made her way to the kitchen, with books for later reading spilling out onto the gray suede.

Tifa set her phone and keys down on the peninsula separating the kitchen from the living room and headed to the stove to grab the kettle from the back burner. She stepped over to the sink with it, and was halfway to being full, a glance through the window showed her neighbors, a nice couple several years older, sitting down to dinner with their two small children. She turned the faucet off and made her way to the stove, blinking furiously.

"Higgins!" Tifa called. She set the burner to high and wiped at her eyes. "Higgins, where are you? I need you!"

Tifa spied the marmalade cat as she yanked a tissue from the box on the counter. He was staring at her through squinted eyes from one of the arm chairs. "We're a family too. Right, Higgs?" she asked him, drying her cheeks.

Higgins yawned.

"You lazy cat," Tifa chided. "I bet you haven't moved from that spot all day. Whereas, I—"

The unexpected buzzing of her cell phone cut her off. She picked it up from where it lay on the counter and frowned at the long distance number she didn't recognize on the ID screen.

"Hello?" she answered.

"You know," came a man's voice. "I waited and waited, but after three weeks of not hearing from you, a guy can only come to two conclusions..."

Tifa clutched the tissue to the sudden flutter in her chest. "…Zack?"

There was a laugh. "So you haven't forgotten who I am—that rules out the first one. You must've lost my number then."

"I—" Tifa was speechless. What could she say? _No, I threw it away on purpose because I planned on never talking to you again? _ "I-I guess I did," she lied. "Sorry."

"Hey, that's okay," Zack cut in. "There's no need to apologize. I lose numbers all the time—that's why I programmed yours in. How was your day?"

"My…day?" His quick change of subject, especially to a question she had so desperately needed, had Tifa doubting her ears.

"Isn't that what I said? Unless I slipped and asked, 'Why didn't you call me?' So how was it? Good? Bad? Uneventful?"

"It was…stressful," she admitted. "I turned in a big paper today, one that I spent all weekend working on."

"What was it about?"

"A subject guide for Mathematics."

"What's a subject guide?"

"It's, um, a paper that lists resources for a specific subject. Like, if a library patron were to come up to the reference desk looking for information on something—Mathematics, in this case—it would be my job to have knowledge of all the various resource materials available..." Tifa stopped, confused, and swallowed a growing lump in her throat. "I'm sorry. That was probably incredibly dull."

"Not at all," Zack replied. "As a matter of fact, you were starting to get me all hot and bothered."

Tifa's eyes widened. "I-I was?"

"You sure were. Remember my chosen profession? I've been looking a long time for a girl like you, you know. Tell me you find macroeconomics and differential equations incredibly sexy and I'm yours forever."

"Zack!" It came out as a half-gasp, half-laugh.

Her outburst sent him into a fit of laughter. "So how do you think you did?"

Whether Zack truly cared or was merely making polite conversation, it didn't matter; Tifa was grateful to him either way. She could already feel the knots in her psyche loosening, the tension leaving her brows.

She massaged the back of her neck. "I wish I knew. I'm not very well-versed in math. I mean, I don't think I need to be, but I'd feel better about my grade if I knew what I was talking about."

"Well, if you want, you could e-mail it to me. I can look it over for you."

"Really? You'd be willing to do that?"

Zack chuckled. "Did that offer sound so full of shit that you don't believe me? Seriously, I'm serious—as long as it's not novel-length. Do you have a pen and paper handy?"

"Oh, hold on." Tifa cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear and scrounged in her miscellaneous drawer for both. She managed a pencil and the empty spot on an old appointment reminder postcard from her dentist. "Okay, go."

"It's 'z hyphen man at Gaiawire dot com.'"

"I'm with Gaiawire too. Mine's 'tlockhart.'"

"How creative. Do you spell your last name with an 'e'?"

"No, though people often try to put one in there. It's very Nibelheiman in origin. And don't knock my creativity"—she looked at the postcard again—"Z-Man."

"It's an old nickname," he explained. "My buddies still use it, in fact. Don't you have a nickname? And what's that noise?"

Tifa's ears belatedly registered her tea kettle, which had probably been whistling for some time and she hadn't heard it. "Oh my goodness!" She hurried to turn off the stove and move the kettle to a different burner. "Sorry. I was boiling water for something to drink when you called."

"Yeah? Tea or cocoa?"

"Tea." Tifa opened one of her upper cabinets for a mug and a teabag. "And to answer your question, not really. Barret calls me 'Teef' every once in a while, but I'm not sure it counts."

"'Teef,' huh? I wouldn't count it, if I were you. Sounds like someone with a speech impediment trying to say 'teeth.' I bet I could come up with something better."

His boast had her eyes rolling as she headed back to the kettle. "Like what?"

"Hmm, let me see... Okay, how's this one: 'T-Bag'—inspired by your drink of choice."

Tifa recoiled in horror. "Absolutely not!"

"T-Spoon?"

"No!"

"T-Cakes? Now, I don't know about you, but I happen to like that one."

"Oh, gods, just stop. Stop!" Tifa said, laughing. She tore open her teabag, dropped it into her mug and poured water over it. "They're all awful."

"Damn, you're a hard woman to please," Zack complained. "Fine. No nickname for you."

"No middle name either," she told him.

There was a moment of silence. "What? You're kidding, right? Who in the world doesn't have a middle name?"

"Me, obviously." Tifa dunked her tea bag a few times and set it on the counter. "My parents couldn't agree on one and their families kept getting into fights over it, so as a compromise, I wasn't given one. Or so the story goes."

"So what did they call you when you were in trouble?"

Tifa smiled. "I never got in trouble. I was a perfect angel."

There was a scoff. "Yeah, okay."

"Well, what's _your_ middle name?" She lifted her mug to her lips and blew on her tea before taking a tentative sip.

"Eliot," Zack said. "After my dad."

"And I bet you heard 'Zackary Eliot Fair' quite a bit."

"Still do, actually," he confessed, laughing. "What kind of tea are you drinking?"

"Chamomile," she answered. "It was almost Wutai Black, but I needed something more nerve soothing tonight."

"Oh." There was a pause. "I probably should've asked this earlier, but did I call at a bad time?"

"Actually, you called at a perfect time." Tifa smiled to herself. _If only you knew how perfect_. "I just got home."

"Is this the time you normally get home then? Eight?"

"On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, usually. I have to work right after class on those days," Tifa explained. "And it's nine here, you're an hour behind me, remember?"

"It still seems kind of late to be just getting home," he observed.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays are a little earlier. I only have classes on those days, but they run later, so I get home at six."

"Hmm, sounds like a full schedule. Must wreak some havoc on your social life."

"Not really," she said. "I have my Saturday evenings and all of Sunday free, but there really isn't a social life to wreak on."

Zack let out an exaggerated gasp. "What? No boyfriend to neglect, no friends to guilt trip you for ditching?"

"I'm afraid not." Tifa made her way into the living room to plunk down on the sofa next to her bag. "I mean, I have acquaintances here, but that 'hero business' hasn't vanished yet, so everyone still kind of treats me differently."

"And your buddies from that 'hero business?' What happened to them?"

"Well, after everything was said and done, we divided our earnings and went our separate ways. Barret lives in Kalm with his adopted daughter—that's where I was, too, before I decided to go back to school. Vincent disappeared to Gaia knows where. Cid went back to Rocket Town to get married and start a commercial flight business—I still talk to him once or twice a month. Yuffie returned to Wutai, presumably to learn how to be a queen. And Nanaki is back in Cosmo Canyon, I think."

"You didn't mention Cloud yet. Is he with you in Junon?"

"No, he's still in Kalm. He opened a bike shop there. I—" Tifa thought back to the day Cloud had announced that he was moving out to live in the space above that shop—_alone_. The news had been so devastating then that even now her heart felt little pangs at the memory. "I _did_ tell him about you though."

"Oh yeah? How'd he take it?"

"He was shocked, of course!" Tifa said, unable to hold back a laugh. She could still hear Cloud's admonishment that if she was pranking him it wasn't funny. It had been a short phone call. "I urged him to visit you."

"Huh," was Zack's response, and the syllable held a note in it that Tifa found strange. "Do you think he will?"

No, she didn't. But maybe Cloud would surprise her—surprise them both. "I don't know," she answered honestly.

"He didn't tell you? Weren't you two close?"

Tifa told herself that it was only natural for him to be curious, but it rubbed at a nerve that was still raw from her earlier ruminations. "You know, you ask an awful lot of questions."

"I know," Zack told her. "I do it on purpose."

His candidness made her blink. "Have you always been this…this…" She searched for the right word. "Forward?"

There was a long pause before he answered, "Let's just say I've learned that patience is a luxury no one is guaranteed. Does it offend you? If so, I apologize."

"No, it doesn't offend me," Tifa said quietly. "And I get it, I do."

"Yeah, I thought you might."

In the heavy silence left in the wake of Zack's pronouncement, Higgins stood up and stretched his back into a perfect arch before hopping down from the chair. He sauntered over to the sofa and stared up at her until Tifa patted the spot next to her, then he sprang to the cushion and immediately set to the serious business of washing himself.

Tifa sighed as the books lying next to him glared up at her. As tempting as it was to keep talking, and as much as she was enjoying the break in her tedium, she really needed to get started on her homework if she wanted to catch up on any of that missed sleep from the weekend.

"Hey, Zack?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't mean to be rude, but I've got a lot to do before bed. I'm sorry."

"Don't be!" he insisted. "I didn't even think about how late it was for you when I called. I really just wanted to check in to see how well the news of my timely _non_-death went over."

"It's okay. And yeah, nobody called me a liar—well, more than twice, anyway." When Zack laughed, Tifa realized he thought she was joking. "Anyway, thanks for calling. Have a good night, Zack."

"You too. And don't forget to send me that math thingy. Sleep well, Tifa."

She could feel the conversation wanting to venture into awkward goodbyes territory again so she did the first thing that came to mind—she hung up. With the push of a button, it became another normal Monday night again—only not, because Tifa no longer felt like her normal Monday self. She felt…changed, somehow.

But whether or not it was a welcome change, Tifa was still undecided.

* * *

**From:** z-man  
**Subject: Testing, testing... 1-2-3  
Date: **April 6, 0010 6:04 AM EGT  
**To: **tlockhart

did you receive this?

z.

—

**Subject: re: Testing, testing... 1-2-3  
From:** Tifa Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 06:32:13 WGT

Yes. Was I supposed to?

-Tifa

—

**From:** Zack Fair  
**Subject: duh  
Date: **April 6, 0010 8:12 AM EGT  
**To: **T-Spoon Lockhart

duh. send me that math guide you were talking about. it'll keep me awake during my morning classes.

—

**Subject: re: duh  
From:** T-Spoon Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 8:26:51 WGT

I've attached it. Thanks again!

And how did you return my email so quickly? Don't you have class?

—

**From:** Zack Fair  
**Subject: re: duh  
Date: **April 6, 0010 10:12 AM EGT  
**To: **T-Spoon Lockhart

of course i have class. style too.

i'll take a look and let you know my thoughts.

—

**Subject: re: duh  
From:** T-Spoon Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 16:19:34 WGT

|_ and of course i have class. style too._

That's debatable. I'm leaving school now so I probably won't be able to reply to you until tomorrow or later, unless you get back to me right away.

—

**From:** Zack Fair  
**Subject: re: duh  
Date: **April 6, 0010 5:21 PM EGT  
**To: **T-Spoon Lockhart

how's this for right away?

you're lucky i'm at home and happen to be at my computer. i looked at your paper. will you be around if i call later?

—

**Subject: re: duh  
From:** T-Spoon Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 16:25:46 WGT

Wow, that -was- pretty fast.

Yes, but homework will also be calling tonight. Did you find something wrong with it?

—

**From:** Zack Fair  
**Subject: re: duh  
Date: **April 6, 0010 5:31 PM EGT  
**To: **T-Spoon Lockhart

it was fine. :)

you had a couple of publications that aren't in print any more, don't know if that means anything. the back issues are still quality tho.

let me know if there's anything else i can help with.

—

**Subject: re: duh  
From:** T-Spoon Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 16:49:51 WGT

THANK YOU!

OMG you have no idea how relieved I am. Thank you so much!

—

**Subject: ZACK YOU ASS!  
From:** Tifa Lockhart  
**To: **Zack Fair  
**Date:** 4/6/10 16:37:08 WGT

My name is not T-Spoon! (not T-Bag or T-Cakes either)

—

**From:** Zack Fair**  
Subject: re: ZACK YOU ASS!  
Date: **April 6, 0010 7:31 PM EGT  
**To: **Tifa Lockhart

took you long enough to notice. :p

* * *

When her phone rang later that night Tifa was sitting cross-legged on her sofa, surrounded by books, with a sleeping Higgins pressed against her hip.

A quick glance told her it was Zack's number, even though she hadn't yet added him as a contact. She had been anticipating his call though, and if she were honest—looking forward to it. Even his emails, as brief as they were, had made her day a little more interesting.

Tifa pushed the button to answer. "Hello?"

"Tifa?"

"Yes?" She recognized that fluttering again from last night, from the day in the park—only this time it wasn't in her chest or stomach.

_Down, girl, _said the rational part of her. _It's only your name. You hear it all the time._

_Yes, _answered her long-buried libido, _but not in that sexy of a voice._

"Just making sure," said Zack. "You sounded different, for some reason."

Tifa felt her face grow warm. "How was your day?"

"How was my day?" He sounded surprised that she would want to know. "It was good. Hey, could you hold on for a second?"

"Sure. Is something wrong?"

"No, it's— Ah, screw it, I'll take you with me."

"Zack," Tifa warned. "You'd better not be on your way to the bathroom."

There was a noise on the other end of the line that Tifa couldn't quite identify. It sounded like a kind of huffing wheeze.

"Zack!"

"Tifa!" he gasped.

"Oh, god… Is everything okay?" she asked, growing more worried by the second. "Should I call emergency? Zack?"

"Stop! You're killing me!" The wheezing intensified before becoming the robust laughter Tifa remembered from that first day.

"…Better not be on my way to the bathroom…" Zack repeated, chuckling. "Oh, man. I was only going to take you to the kitchen with me. I just got home, so I haven't eaten dinner yet and I'm starving."

"Oh," Tifa said. "Should I let you go?"

"No. Just need to"—the refrigerator door opened and closed in the background—"pop something in the microwave."

"Why are you getting home so late?"

Tifa heard the microwave door slam and the beeping of numbers being pressed. "I was doing taxes for a friend of my dad's. I would've been home sooner, but he wanted me to stay and meet his daughter."

"Really?" He said it so casually Tifa wondered if it was a common occurrence.

"Yeah. Apparently, this town's full of nothing but single women," he continued, "and, I swear, I've been introduced to every single one of them. I need to start telling people I have a girlfriend in another city."

"If you think that'll work..." Tifa doubted the women of Gongaga would let something like an absentee girlfriend stop them, especially if they were accomplished hair-tossers.

The microwave let out a long beep. "Let's just say I'm optimistic about these things—after all, it worked before. Got a bad reputation for being a womanizer though."

"So, the girl in every city thing…"

He laughed. "Come on. When would I have had the time?"

_Oh, Aerith,_ Tifa thought. _If only you had known…_ And for the second time in the last month, her heart broke for her friend, for Zack, and for the future the two of them—all of them—might've had had circumstances been different. Even she and Cloud…

_The past is the past, Tifa,_ he had said. _And what's done can't be undone. Why try?_

_Because trying is what makes the present better, _she had answered.

But Cloud had been right: there was no undoing the past, and because of that she shared a bond with this man that probably no one else in his life could understand. Maybe that was why Zack had sought her out weeks after their meeting in the park. She, too, knew what it felt like to have experiences that set her apart from everyone else—hadn't she told him as much last night?

Tifa was suddenly ashamed to remember that she had thrown away his number. But what was she going to do about it now? Continue to resist the fork in her path? Or would she try to make the present better and allow the friendship that they both so obviously needed?

She guessed she could start by getting to know him better. "Zack," Tifa said, trying not to notice the homework around her. "Can I ask you a question?"

There was muffled chewing, then a loud swallow. "After all the ones I've pushed at you, seems only fair. Shoot."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty. No, wait. Hold on…" She heard the brief tapping of cutlery against a surface. "I'm twenty-five. Sometimes I forget."

Tifa's eyebrows knotted. But she reminded herself that pity was the last thing he'd want. "When's your birthday?"

"September thirteenth. When's yours?"

"I turn twenty-three next month."

"What day?"

"The third."

"May third, huh? Got anything big planned?"

"For my birthday?" Tifa absently scratched Higgins's ears, which made him curl into a tighter ball. "I'll probably end up working, but maybe I'll treat myself to a nice, hot bath and skip studying that night."

"Whoa, there. Let's not get too wild now," he said. "Can't you get anyone to take you out?"

"I'm past needing rescuing, Zack," said Tifa flatly, "even for my birthday."

"Hey, I didn't mean it that way," he said in a mollifying tone. "And while you don't strike me as the type to sit around waiting for some guy on a white horse to come riding in, I'm still a little surprised—no, you know what? I'm just going to say I'm sorry and shut my mouth before I really put my foot in it."

Tifa sniffed and began stuffing some of her books back in her bag. "So I assume you always go out for your birthday?"

"I do, yeah. The guys insist on it. Dave, my cousin, will have a go at getting me to drink until I pass out. Jack, my oldest friend, will try to convince a stripper to accompany me home. And Markus, who is probably the nicest guy you'll ever meet, will vomit at least once before the night is over."

"That sounds like an interesting time," Tifa concluded. The thought of Zack having a circle of friends in Gongaga—and a tight one, by the sound of it—intrigued her. "And this happens every year?"

"It has for the last _two_ years. Mind you, the evening usually ends up differently from what they intend—except for Markus. For one: this is Gongaga—there aren't a lot of strippers around here. And two: I have an exceptionally high tolerance for alcohol, so Dave's usually the one to pass out first. But, hey, what are friends for, right?"

Tifa's hand paused on one of her open notebooks. "Speaking of that…" She bit her lip. "Were you really serious about helping me with my subject guides?" If he was, he could save her a few hours of research.

"Yeah, I told you I was. Why? Was what I said earlier so idiotic that it made you reconsider?" He laughed.

"Oh, nothing like that," Tifa assured him. "My next one is on Economics, and I was wondering if you could suggest some journals, or maybe ask your professor for some recommendations."

Zack scoffed. "I wouldn't ask my professor for directions to the bathroom. Hold on, let me see what I have here..."

Tifa flipped the notebook to a blank page, yanked a pen cap off with her teeth, and waited while she heard the thudding of heavy objects on the other end of the line.

"Well," came his voice, "there's _The Econometrist_, which gets printed monthly. Pretty in-depth reading, definitely not for the faint-of-heart. Hmm...there's also the quarterly _Fiscal Review_, a good publication even for the layman. And I'd recommend _Gaianomics_, but they stopped publishing after Meteor. I think their offices were in Midgar, sadly."

"So just those three," Tifa confirmed. She drew a circle around the list and wrote "Zack's Journal Recommendations" above it. She thought she remembered shelving _The Econometrist_ the other day; she should look it up tomorrow to see just how detailed it was.

"Those are the only ones I think are worth reading." There was more thudding—she guessed he was putting things back on their shelves.

"And you have all of these?"

"Yes, unless I was looking at someone else's bookcase... Why? Were you expecting my literary tastes to run toward something else?"

"Would you be offended if I said yes?" Tifa bit her lip again.

"Depends on what you were thinking."

"Sports and porn?"

His laughter lasted for two whole minutes; Tifa joined him for the last minute of it.

"So you're not offended, I take it," she eventually said.

"Hell, no! You've flattered my bookcase immensely."

"Did I really keep you awake through your morning classes?"

"Yeah, but I made up for it by sleeping through most of my afternoon ones."

"Zack!" Tifa said, earning a stray laugh from him. "Did you get into trouble?"

"No, but it was suggested that I take the exam next month."

There was a nagging in the back of her brain at his mentioning of an exam. "Oh, you mean the 'damnably hard' one you planned for two years from now?"

"Not that one, though it'll be bumped up, too—I'm sure. There are three I need to take in order to be a full-fledged actuary. I've already taken one exam. This one next month, if I take it, will qualify me for the job market. The third one, the damnably hard one, just makes me official."

"But, this is good though, right?" Tifa prompted. "Entering the job market is what you wanted."

"Eh... I don't know about that. I had planned to take it next year for a good reason."

"Why? Do you feel you're not ready for it yet?"

"No, it's nothing like that. I could probably do it in my sleep—which is what my professor told me when she woke me up to suggest I take it."

"Then what is it?" Tifa asked, frowning. "I don't understand."

Zack sighed. "Gongaga's not exactly the center of the business world. It's growing, but I'm fairly positive I won't be able to find an actuarial job here anytime soon, and I'll need some experience under a large company before I can strike off on my own. I'm…not ready to leave, not when I just got my family and friends back. I— Ah, shit."

"What? What is it?"

"It's my mom calling in on the other line—speaking of family—and if I don't answer, she'll assume the worst. Listen, I'm sorry and I'll talk to you later, all right?"

_Later? _"All right. And thanks for all your help today. I really appreciate it."

He chuckled. "Hey, thanks for all the entertainment. I really enjoyed it. Good night, Tifa."

"Good night, Zack."

Tifa pushed the button to end the call, and tapped her phone against her chin. With her other hand she rubbed Higgins's wide belly while she stared thoughtfully into empty space, surprised that she was already looking forward to their next conversation.

* * *

**AN: **Thank you to all, especially those who came out of lurkerhood, who reviewed the last chapter.

And a big thank you to the readers who take the time to review every chapter. You are the heavy lifters of motivation for multichapter writers, and your consideration is truly, greatly appreciated.


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